Adapted for UK use from an original Australian resource in a
process led by the late Professor Helen Lester, this resource has
been produced through collaboration between the Royal Colleges of
General Practitioners and of Psychiatrists, supported
by NAS. The Lester resource was recently updated with
NHS England and Public Health England and is being used in the
current NHS mental health CQUIN. Further information is available on this
website.

Endorsement by the National Institute for Health and
Care Excellence (NICE)

This Cardiometabolic Health Resource supports
the recommendations relating to

monitoring physical health in the NICE
guidelines on psychosis and schizophrenia in adults

USER-LED LESTER POSTCARD PROMPT

The NAS service user reference group
have developed this postcard prompt to empower service users to
approach their GP surgery or Mental Health Team to ask how the
Lester resource could help improve their physical health. Clinical
staff such as community psychiatric nurses and primary care nurses
may find the Lester Postcard helpful in encouraging their patients
and family members to seek appropriate help.

A
poster on this Lester Postcard prompt, in conjunction with the
Lester resource recently won the HQIP 2014 award for the category
'Creating conditions for local improvement'. For further details,
see our Publications page.

Other resources

Resources on physical health

The
Integrated Physical Health Pathway 2014 ,
developed by Rethink Mental Illness, is a resource that supports
health professionals to coordinate physical health monitoring for
people affected by mental illness and ensure information is
communicated effectively between services. The resource was
designed in collaboration with the Royal College of GPs, the Royal
College of Nursing and the Royal College of Psychiatrists. It sets
out a template for services across primary and secondary care to
work together to ensure the physical health needs of people
affected by mental illness are identified and addressed. Further
resources and information can be found at www.rethink.org/phc.

The
Healthy Active Lives (HeAL) leaflet on 'Keeping
the body in mind in youth with psychosis' is aimed at prescribers,
particularly those responsible for prescribing for first episode
psychosis.

Rethink Mental Illness have a
webpage on physical health. This page also includes links to
download their Physical Health Check tool.

NEW!

RIGHT FROM THE
START: a resource to empower service
users to ask their Mental Health Team or GP surgery for support to
improve their physical health in the critical early treatment phase
of psychosis when seeds of poor future health may be sewn. Linking
with the Lester tool, this resource has been created by service
users and practitioners from Greater
Manchester West Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust.March
2016.